Laguna test: Player's twins close in

"I have to thank the team because they gave me a big present," said da Matta. "The car was really good right off the truck and it was one of those days when we didn't have to work very hard on the car to make it go fast.

"It's too early to get excited, because it doesn't really matter who was fastest today. But it's good for the confidence of the team to know that our work is paying off," he added.

Bruno Junqueira ran fourth fastest to head Scott Dixon and Michael Andretti. The latter fared much better than his Team Green running mates Dario Franchitti and Paul Tracy, both of whom had days fraught by mechanical difficulties.

"I was beginning to wonder if we were going to ever get a lap in today," remarked Franchitti. "We were chasing little problems all day - an electrical gremlin that was causing a misfire and a bad clutch at the beginning of the afternoon session. We are just going to look at it as our 50-mile test day."

Shinji Nakano was uninjured in the day's only accident.